


Scorched and Salted

by Nobodyhasblindedme



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Heinoustuck, Body Horror, Body Modification, Gen, Heinoustuck - Freeform, No relationships yet, Non-Consensual Body Modification, and learning to live again, dave and rose centric for a while, just some kids dealing with hideous shit, oneshots all in the same universe, others to follow - Freeform, some gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-07-21 03:09:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16151288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nobodyhasblindedme/pseuds/Nobodyhasblindedme
Summary: Is it weird that the aftermath scares you more then the cataclysm?--Dave has just come home from the hospital after his Epoch of Transmutation and is waiting for the world to make sense again. Or maybe that's the painkillers - he got those, right?





	1. Lilacs from the Dead Land

**Author's Note:**

> Heinoustuck deserves more, so here I am, giving it more. This is a series of oneshots that will vary in length, but do tie into a larger storyline. If anyone is interested in hitting me up for ideas or thoughts about possible other happenings in other chapters, I'd be happy to read it! My tumblr is themarginalthinker.tumblr.com, and thanks for reading!

TG: show me yours i'll shpw yoi mine

TG: you*

TG: damn bird hand thinh

TG: thing*

TG: fuck

TT: Eloquent. 

TT: Color me almost as surprised to not actually receive a dick pic as I would be to see what horrorterror is now a facsimile of your genitalia. 

TT: I applaud your restraint. :3

TT: Um. Sorry. That slipped out.

TG: hell yeah, baby. struttin' and fluffin all up in here

TG: sexy birdman on main

TG: where all thw chikcs are like

TG: actual chicks. caw caw, bitch haha

TG: the*

TG: chicks*

TT: My mother must have messed with more than what the Transmutation outline I saw laid out.

TT: I could have sworn I just witnessed the death of any sort of subtly the Strider clanad had to offer.

TT: My newly delicate nose is detecting the thin tendrils of what a less learned fool would call

TT: hint dropping. 

TG: what 

TG: no

TG: what made you think that 

TG: it wasn't me i swear

TT: An imposter Dave, then. 

TT: I had no idea Transmutations were capable of total physical and mental duplication. This data must be sent to the mysterious shadowbody government for immediate examination. 

TG: yeah man

TG: you writing all this sick science shit down 

TG: cuz the popo are gonna have to send out the sickest squads for this 

TG: the world just cant handle this illness squared

TT: This malady mirrored? 

TG: this disorder distributed 

TG: amongst the prohibited 

TG: of all the unlimited 

TG: literate trickturers

TT: It is  good to hear from you, Dave. 

TT: :3

TT: ..sorry. 

 

Uh.

 

Wow. Ok. You sit back and squint (as much as that's possible now, you guess. Whatever man - the action going on in your maybe-eyes right now feels like the equivalent of squinting, so that's what you're gonna say you're doing) at the screen and the little lines of periwinkle text. 

 

Ok.

 

Ok, you felt the immediate panic dribble out of you reading just those first few lines of reply at your, admittedly, poorly thought-out first try at the always awkward "Hi! I'm back from being horribly twisted, morphed, and molded into whatever form my parental unit found most amusing at the moment, undeniably the most traumatic thing in my life, but hey, we aren't here to spread the gloom, how did YOUR pants-shittingly terrifying death and rebirth go???" conversation. 

 

Rose was still Rose. 

 

She scoffed at your lame attempt at humor, she engaged in the usual rounds of deadpan snarkery and flighty broad avoidance horseshittery. She poked at your blatant failure to ease the thick stench of tension surrounding everything about the two of you now with her usual prodding deeper into your own words. 

 

She was still here.

 

Aaaand currently probably waiting for your reply, shit. You lean forward and set your finger-claws to the keys with more energy than you actually felt you were capable of at the moment. 

  
  


TG: this isn't the part where we like, tell each other our deepest darkest wishes or some shit right 

TG: like some kinda eldrich slumber party of the imminently deceased 

TG: cuz I gotta tell you 

TG: i only got one box of tissues beside my bed and those dont usually take familiarity with my face

TG: but like you know 

TG: you too. 

 

There is a pretty long pause, and you have time to consider, between gritting your teeth in your already aching jaw at holding back from scratching the hell out of your poor new stitching, if maybe you were laying it on just...a little thick, before your computer rewards your iron will with a sweet little notifications ding. 

 

TT: I can, if you want. 

TG: what?

TT: Send you a picture, I mean. 

TT: And I 

TT: I won't ask you to send one back. While my cynicism would like to sit poised in a tall, dark, drawingroom armchair sipping black tea through smirking lips at the notion you've indeed been, unquote, “struttin' and fluffin” in front of a mirror for the past three days, my realism would like to posit the fact that I

TT: I myself am rather

TT: uh

TT: avoiding all reflective surfaces if given the chance. I just

TT: I just feel like while we are past the part of this whole process most would figure is the more difficult, I think the real trial is about to begin. Dealing with ones own self and realizing it's not a nightterror or an alcohol-induced toxin dream and that this

TT: this thing is now forever.

TT: Anyway.

TG: um

TT: With as equal and opposite sincerity as you lack, please don't feel like you need to actually respond.

TT: In fact 

TT: please don't. 

TT: I have to go to bed now, anyway.

TT: Goodnight Dave. 

TT: Happy Birthday, by the way.

TT: I was so caught up in my own Transmutation it completely slipped my mind to wish you one. 

\-- TT , tentacleTherapaist, sent file: img_me.jpg--

 

\--tentacleTherapaist is now an idle chum!--

  
  


You sit and watch as the last line of text is sent, and the little icon next to Rose's chumhandle flickers out, null and grey. 

 

You are left with your hands - er - hand and talons - lingering over the keyboard, the feeling of words, or something like it, trapped behind your teeth and under your tongue, just inside the curve of your skull. Or...shit,  maybe that's just the stitches, fuck they itch-!

 

Sitting back, as much as his tail feathers and wings will actually allow you, you let your eyes consider the provided image file, if for no other reason then to distract yourself from the incessant tickling around your face and back and arm. Well...ok, tell a lie. 

 

You were curious. 

 

More curious then some slimy, guilty part of you would let you admit. 

 

You knew her mom liked cats; Rose spoke....often enough about how it seemed like a mindgame the woman was playing with herself when she got Rose Japers only to amp up her own load of housework in keeping the building as pristine and cat hair-free as it had been before. She also liked wizards, and mostly worked as a freelance...tech support...something or other, you recalled a bit hazily. God, the fucking possibilities for what the woman had selected for Rose's mutation, then...

 

Your head was beginning to spin a little, and you raise your right hand without thinking to rub at the red synthetic crust around your temple, pulling back as pinpricks of pain alert you that one, your nervous system was left mostly untouched and two, those claws were indeed as sharp as they looked. 

 

Parents didn't literally design their child's mutations, at least, not to the extent media liked to forcefeed it in thrillers and action movies, but...there was a fair amount of /customizing/ they could opt for, up until a certain point of impracticality. You were sure one of the stipulations was 'child must have use of at least one hand, preferably the dominant one', looking down blearily at your own limbs. 

 

Bro never seemed to care about your preferences before now, and though you were still determined to not...look terribly further then your own hands right just then, you at least knew your dominant left hand was now an opposable bird foot a furry would be creaming themselves to get a hold of. Heh...that's probably why he did it, the bastard…

 

You close your eyes, the itching around your face and the dull pulse of a stress headache working up it’s painful appetite just under your forehead getting to be too much. Right. Rose just sent you some sick fucking post-’mutation selfies. Gotta admire the tenacity of the girl, only barely a week out and she was trying to get you subbed to the Instagram account she totally has, haha. 

 

Even in your own mind, it seems you’re incapable of shutting the fuck up and actually letting the hysterics scratching at the door of your sanity in with circuitous mouthbabble bullshit. Rose was clearly still as out of it as you were, if her parting words were any indication. Rose never went to bed this early.

 

Whatever. You cough what you think passes for your version of a scoff anymore, and roll your eyes as you clumblisly move the mouse over the image file. What the actual fuck ever, Rose sent the files, and fucking god, it’s not like she does anything without intent. Even now, she knows you too well to just drop that hot shit there and expect you to just leave it. Play coy all you want Rose, you’re popping open these 100% organic Lalonde selfies like bottles on New Years Eve at the asshole factory and you’ve got several controversial opinions to voice aloud. 

 

The mouse hovers over the file on the messenger, little line of black link going a too-cheerful blue. God. It hurts your eyes, even through the shades (tht may or may not be screwed to your actual face). Or maybe that’s just the light sensitivity the docs warned you about during your post-op checkover. Fuck, why do those quacks ever think anyone’s actually listening to shitall at that point? Ah yeah nurse, just dose me up with about six liters of flurocarbon and god-only-knows-what-else, bust me up like I’m the pinnata at a sugar-crazed six year old with a terminal illness’s final birthday with a final helping of good old bodily shock to top it off and we are, all about memorizing this useless list of shit not to do after you send me home to figure out what the fuck my life is now. Fucking pricks.

 

Ok...ok, you actually deign to take some of another of your friend’s advice for once and take a few breaths. You just - you let go a bit much there, and all you were doing was just staring at the damn image file. You think your hands are shaking a little. And maybe a trip to the bathroom to upend whatever might be left in your stomach (hell..you do still have one, right?) before sitting down to focus might be in order. 

 

The cursor moves a bit as you shift in your chair, trying to figure out what your body is trying to tell you. All the signals feel wrong, like the doctors deliberately crossed all the wires just to fuck with you. The fan in your room was totally not that loud when you turned it on, did Bro somehow crank it up? He said he was going out after he dropped you off home though… And wouldn’t it be just your luck the air conditioning unit broke while you were in the pits of hell, there’s no way it’s that hot in this room...

 

Jesus fuck, this is getting tedious.You click the link in a fit of itchy, (probably?) nauseous madness, eyebrows (or the muscle group where they used to be probably) furrowing. You handled your own goddamn Transmutation, it’s not like looking at a simple picture of your friend is making you live through it a second time. 

 

A window on your screen opens, taking about three seconds too long to load the picture. 

 

Turns out you do have a stomach still, and you don’t make it to the bathroom.


	2. Shadow Shouts on a Nightmare Scream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from 'Caged Bird' by Maya Angelou

Mom had brought your favorite blanket from home. You could smell how it had been recently washed, and it was too soft. The rip at the top right corner had been stitched up nice and tight to keep the batting from spilling out like a gutted animal. Heh.

The woman may as well have not even bothered. 

You could feel through the spinning of the room and the soggy moss that was your brain at current something along your arms catching and pulling at the delicate fabric. The blanket was old, had been a gift when you were a baby. There was a smiling octopus on the front. You'd never seen a real one before. 

You somehow doubted they smiled. Or had such human faces. Your face hurt. You knew you weren't supposed to smile right now. 

Something white floated in front of your face, jagged edges and rolling grey blobs. Your doctor, the...the one with a dog skull jaw and watery slate eyes. You closed your eyes when the sound of his voice was worse then steel against chalkboard at the moment, turning in your stomach like infested meat. Some leftover sense of embarrassment about being sick in public. Mom would just wipe it up with the blanket probably. 

Something held your shoulders a little tighter, pulled up the offending artifact of comfort to your chin and picked at your hair. Some of it stuck in clumps. 

" -eed to clean them, but it's best to wait a few days so we can be sure nothing is rejec-"

"-have the emergency number for-"

"-rs. Lalond, I know you can, but lots of children need help wi-"

"- atch the face; this design is complected so don't-"

Stitches. You examined the lines of baby puke green thread your mother had chosen to patch your blanket together with. So even. Medical in precision. You're...reminded of that time a few years back, back when you were small enough still that the embrace of your mother's tentacles and her burbling voice didn't make electric fear play along your spine and at the back of your head. when she would sit and let you read aloud to her your favorite books, stories about times when the world was different. When adults weren't Transmuted and they were the full product of growing up untouched by scalpel and flurocarbon. 

Your mother actually talked to you then, and you to her. She told you she wanted to be a nurse, in the way back when. She liked kids. She was told she could probably go all the way and be a pediatrician if she wanted. She went to school for it for a good few years too, Rosie, your mommy was going to help kids get better and live in this dying world. You didn't like the tang on her breath when she was talking, so you told her that was cool and went back to reading about Acorn and Co's vapid adventures.

You squirm a little. Something about the way the blanket is pulling at your shoulders just - it won't sit right, like the way your vague memories tell you it should. Something writhing and sinuous slides across your hair, pulling it back. 

"Shh sh, baby I know. Momma's gotta finish with the docs and pick some stuff up from work, but then we're gonna go home and you can sleep Rosie, I promise. It's gonna be ok.." 

The tentacle is gentle, but even that small movement over your head has your face pulling down - and it hurts, mother, _mom...fuck!_

People kept talking around you and they sounded like those old clips of Charlie Brown movies John had dug up from his father's stash of vintage movies and the lot of you spent hours in chat poking at the absurdity. The less-then-quality animation. The weird holidays the titular characters celebrated. The dog Snoopy. Jade says she's got a dog, but you're not sure you believe her after asking for pictures of the beast was met with emoticon shrugs of apology for 'not being able to get a picture of him.' Dave says she just likes animals and, like, probably wants to bring them back from the dead to french 'em; John attests to her obsession with the extinct species like wolves and foxes with the many posters her grandfather had gifted her, bought for countless hundreds from aristocrats who kept antiques from a world long gone. 

Your doctor has a dog jaw. Or at least, one that looks like a dog jaw. Dogs are extinct in the wild, and illegal to own because of their protected status.

The world starts moving, and you feel sick to your bones. Even the smooth glide of the high-end wheel chair isn't enough to make you close your eyes against the colors and sounds whipping past you at mach one-mile-an-hour. 

You come up to the doors of the hospital, and someone's footsteps sound close by. You stop moving, and you hear your mother's voice murmuring softly to someone - by their answering tone, a nurse who forgot something to tell her. You crack open your eyes.

Above the door is a large sign in soft blue letters. Kinda like John's chosen text color. You want. You want to text him and tell him this private hospital is stealing copyrighted colors. 

The Jackson Pollock disguised as the current reality around you doesn't really come into focus the longer you stare at it, but meaning bubbles unexpectedly and suddenly to the surface looking at the cheerful cyan letters. 

**ROCHESTER MEMORIAL HOSPITAL PEDIATRIC TRANSMUTATION WARD**

Rose thorns longer then your fingers used to be make small sounds as they tear the seams on the baby blanket your mother had lovingly stitched whole again. 

She may as well have not even bothered.


	3. Before I Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ASL- old aol messenger acronym for 'Age, sex, location'. We're digging deep, proto sexting.

\--turntechGodhead (TG) started pestering tentacleTherapist (TT) @ 02:43 am--

 

TG: hey rose

TG: rose

TG: gothgurk

TG: gurl*

TG: Beast of Clair's

TG: the Hawt topic

TG: fuck whats another gothy store

TG: spencer's? sure why not

TG: not that I'm sure how those are still in business

TG: youd think with all the metal af shit going on with our bodies people might lose the need for the Aesthetique of that punk shit

TG: rose

TG: omg rose I figured it out

TG: Big Emo manufactured Transmutation

TG: it's a sick ploy to continue their reign of shitty neon-on-black and pleather

TG: I'm going to be shot for my crimed against the government now

TG: send my body to Marx's grave

TG: crimes*

TG: holy shit rose

TG: we should do the Crimes

TG: all of them

TT: Dave

TT: David.

TT: As much as I find these logs something bordering on what the highly generous would call a close facsimile to amusing in the morning

TT: as morning as it can get

TT: I'll remind those who dwell in a perpetual state of hippocami putrification causing symptoms of moronic that border on the asinine

TT: Dave

TT: It is

TT: Three forty six in the morning.

TG: aw shit what

TT: Did you forget time zones were a thing

TG: I forgot time zones were a thing

TT: Well, in case you forgot, Dave, time zones are indeed still parading around believing at least that they themselves are a thing

TG: ok but like

TG: it's only like an hour from here to ney york

TG: new*

TT: Dave

TT: What do you want

TG: can't sleep

TT: What a coincidence.

TG: body's being a fuck

TG: is your body being a fuck

TT: 'A Fuck' is an accurate term, though not what I'd use to describe something pertaining to me at current.

TG: harsh

TG: I knew your mom could be a werido sometimes but I didn't think it would extend to messing with you after The Day ya know

TT: DAVID

TG: okokok!!

TG: uncalled for, I'm the feathery asshole tonight, it's me

TG: look

TG: just.

TT: ...

TT: Dave?

TT: You've been starting and stopping typing for a while now.

TT: .

TT: If I may inquire as to the nature of the previously mentioned 'fuck body' comment?

TT: Or..oh.

TT: This is what you wanted to talk about, right. Couldn't sleep.

TT: Right.

TT: ...

TT: I'm sorry I snapped.

TT: Please don't stop typing.

TG: so ok, I just feel like there's a lot of shit about all this shit that no one ever seems to take into account with this Transmutation bull. Like, 'oh sure, let's just extend their face a foot, that won't incontinence anyone!' or like, fuck 'shit man, I'm a doctor and high as balls on all the formaldehyde I snort everyday, lets just like, fucgin, add giant wings on that shit hell yeah, badass little asshole now' like

TG: 'stick a sword in there for good measure, make sure them shades never leave that face'

TT: Dave

TG: like man, you got me fucked up

TG: but also like, what even ever

TG: not like I even need sleep much anymore

TG: Bro's not psyching me to the roof every morning since

TG: yeah

TG: not that you can even tell when it is, takes till like noon for the sky to lighten

TG: wakey wakey eggmeal and crowmeat bacon fucker

TG: taste the fresh nothing, we get the leave the grocery bill shishkababed to the depo's doors with a katana

TG: ain't gonna be buying anything anymore

TG: like Bro Luther and his 95 whatevers of life now

TT: Theses.

TG: huh

TT: Ninety five Theses of Martin Luther, arguably what started the Protestant Reformation.

TT: And before you waste finger movements, I'm not going to ask why or how this relates to anything we're talking about, or where on earth you found the time and resources to inundate yourself with early 1500s religious zealots' revolutionary work.

TT: You can't find a comfortable position to lie in.

TG: my wings don't like being laid on and my face ain't exactly pillow-copacetic

TT: Right.

TT: On front with your head turned to the side?

TG: mmmmmhhhhhhhhhhh maybe but like

TG: pulls at shit what dont need pulled

TG: already woke up with loose feathers stuffed in my mouth cuz they were all over yesterday

TG: have you ever eaten a feather rose

TT: Life has not graciously seen fit to allow me the experience, no.

TG: shit's ass

TG: my ass

TG: my feathers specifically

TT: I'm afraid I have very few suggestions to make as to the best way to solve this problem Dave, getting back to the matter at...limb-of-some-form.

TT: Perhaps you could try sleeping sitting up.

TT: I had to

TT: when I got back, for a couple days. Mother rather insisted.

TT: I'd also suggest getting something warm to drink but I suppose that's off the table.

TT: Or out of the fridge, as it were.

TG: more like out of the closet the fridge is still a sword locker and resident toe amputation trap

TG: wait

TG: aw fuckking..

TT: You needn't worry. I'm too tired myself to bother with thrusting forward a tendril and jeering like a lobotomized fool at the 'gay closet joke hahaha so funny!!!!'

TT: What are you wearing?

TG: ASL

TT: I don't have to help you. Are you dressed in something comfortable?

TG: I mean, sweatpants and a shirt thats more holes when shirt

TG: cut out the entire back pretty much

TT: ?

TG: when you're this cool you don't own scissors, you use swords

TT: Are you at least in bed.

TG: I'm in the room with it

TT: Well perhaps you should consider the radical notion that the 'bed', an instrument used often to induce human unconsciousness for many many thousands of years, could possibly play an important role in this wild and nigh-fictitious act known as 'sleep'.

TG: sounds fake but ok

TG: anyway uh

TG: yeah

TG: I'll figure something out

TG: if hes not back in half an hour it means hes not coming home tonight so I get to couch surf with my best Bro

TT: ...There are two contradicting sides to that sentence Dave

TG: the porn channel

TT: Being Transmuted doesn't mean you're immortal. Evisceration is still very much a viable death warrant.

TG: yeah then you could have two of me all to yourself

TT: Literally perish.

TG: owo yeah, dat feewls so good

TT: That's my line. :3

TG: christ on a redneck bumpersticker

TT: Get some rest. For your sanity and ours.

TG: rest yes - sanity is still being beaten senseless by the jury tho

TT: Goodnight. Dave.

TG: night rose

 

\--turntechGodhead (TG) ceased pestering tentacleTherapist (TT) @ 02:59 am--

\--tentacleTherapist (TT) is now an idle chum!--

 


	4. Fools, said I, You Do Not Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *badass action music plays* Strider 2.0 Shades: Origins

"It's past cerfew."

 

It's not a question but your shades came equipped with between-the-lines lenses for a long time.

 

Bro's sprawled out on the couch, limbs akimbo (though to be fair they're never not like that) skinless fingers roving over the remote's button. (He'd done that to himself; the white felt gloves that were part of his original design were hemming his style, pun ironically intended.)

 

You press back on the door, the latch hitching before it closes. One hand on your backpack strap, the other in your pocket. Clenched around...yeah. You doesn't see the rolling glassy gaze drift over the article, but you knows it's there just like you knows the answer to the question that never needed asked. _Where the living fuck were you._

 

"The law don't own me." _Out. _A fingered hilt.__

____

____

 

"Sure they've never heard that one." _Do you want to play this game right now._ Steel on steel.

 

"Production-line Enforcer drones need the patented Strider creativity in their lives - I live to provide." _.... ___

____

____

 

"Hm."

 

Death by a thousand cuts.

 

Bro cocks his head. You fancy you can hear the balljoints creak. Something about it makes your teeth ache. The man doesn't look up from the television towards you but that's not always a good gauge. The tv plays in silence for a minute, gaudy colors splashing across the screen in patterns he can't be bothered in coherency to untangle - shows, advertisements - light puking lines over the dark living room and black futon. Bro has never taken you to where he gets gigs but you can imagine the stark borders of neon and shadow separating reality and fictive in the underbelly easily enough.

 

It's like when a car moves past you from behind and you're the fool wearing headphones walking on the wrong side of the street to see it. The sudden knowledge you're in fact _not_ idiot smearings on the assault implanted in your mind but the wind of that fucker not hitting until you're trying a highdive into a mud puddle.

 

You're in your room and there's suddenly a sword through your jacket shoulder and about three inches into the wood of your desk. A the liquid in a jar of something-dead-a-long-time-ago ripples once. He must be pretty upset then.

 

Your backpack is still in the kitchen. The tv is still on.

 

When your chest hurts from not breathing you take in small sucks of air. He watches you from beside your bed, legs braced and arms swinging from the shoulders slightly.

 

"Never usually talk." He hand taps his hip.

 

You tilt your head away from the mirror edge of the katana, "I'll admit, they lack the subtle arts of straight schooling a dude when he's down most of the time. 's why it's up to someone to teach 'em the good shit."

 

_I wasn't followed. ___

____

____

 

A spark of dead sunset breaks the horizon of black as he peers over his shades at you.

 

Well, there goes that damn car again, making a liar about of you about your skills in kissing sidewalks. Or floors as it were.

Your jacket is still pinned to the desk, its pocket unnoticed.

 

You hope there's enough sunlight (weak, grey, filtered through clouds of vaporized detritus) left to see the edge of the roof.

\--

EB: i know im the one who sent them but you will never be Stiller.

TG: well shit there go all of my hopes dreams and lifelong heartful yernings 

EB: they do look pretty nice though 

EB: if i do say so myself. 

EB: just don't fall down anymore stairs while you wear em! 

EB: for a 'cool dude' you sure find yourself ass first down them enough. 

TG: after i Jason Borne'd my ass halfway across town after hours just to get em? 

TG: i think you'd have an easier time removing an oil line from a politician's asshole, man 

EB: great 

EB: well i hope you like them cuz....there's literally nothing else like them out there! 

EB: happy friendiversarry!! in the words of Jade 

TG: she's just looking for reasons to get gifts on Hellmurder 

TG: or force airlifts to come and get stranded with her 

TG: dangerous game shes playing 

TG: dr harley, i presume 

TB: eheheh 

EB: maybe. 

EB: but the Gamebros are a nice addition to the fireplace here, just so you know 

EB: and im sure the pogo ride is all the safer for the plush..uh, butt buffer. 

TG: only quality for my bro on friendiverssary 

TG: if only certain brauds of certain persuasions could see such truths of my magnanimity 

EB: lol such a troll 

TG: and you'd be fatally uncool without me 

 


	5. Silent Spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what exactly IS the status of Hellmurder Island in the Transmutation world?

_My dearest Granddaughter, allow me to be the first to wish you the most splendifferous of birthdays!_

Your hand clenches around Bec's collar as he strains against it, other wrapped around his muzzle. There's no quieting him though, your good dog always looking out for you. In the dark of the closet his white fur seems to glow, ultraviolet. It's stuffy and humid, like always, but you don't usually make a habit of climbing into storage closets for the heck of it, and Bec's body and fur aren't helping the heat. They shut the power off fifteen minutes ago, or, thereabouts. It was the only warning you got, aside from your guardian. 

_I can scarce believe thirteen years have passed so quickly. Pwaa! Just look looking back on all the hubbub you and I have stirred up together, why it makes one's head spin to think you accomplished all that in barely a decade! So bright and talented, my girl._

The generator was in the basement, one of the lowest levels, if not THE lowest level. You wouldn't actually know; though he mainly kept his lab work in the tower, Grandpa did keep things below, and you knew it was Totally Serious Business science so you were never allowed to go near it. You don't know how they managed to turn it off. Bec is shivering against you, claws making your teeth grit as you slide him back further away from the sliver of light under the door and the small vent slashes. You wish you had teeth like his to bear for real, all sharp and long and super intimidating - and then with a wrench in your gut shove the thought deep away. Not right now, you don't want to think about being a cool extinct animal right now..

_I always told them, I always said 'Jade will be the one! She's got that spark, that snap of downforth pizzazz! No life of drudgery and menial hogwash for her, no sir!' I was always so proud of the way you took to the world of the unknown and uncharted. A real get-up-and-go gal. I know you'll do even me one better, love, and it makes the world a might brighter._

You remember you left your lunchtop open, and your stomach flips. Not that you'd been doing anything of real great importance on it anyway when everything had shut off. (God, the atrium had gone so dark, the heatlamps and sunlights were almost always on in one wing or another, it was never just supposed t Turn Off, like turning off the sun…) Dave hadn't uploaded any new music, or bothered to send you specifically any new tracks. In fact...your chumrole had been looking a grey as the skies outside the past few days, and you tired not to let that...get to you. They were. Occupied. They'd be back on soon, and you're sure Dave would have lots ore music, and Rose would have plenty to say about. Stuff. John...

He'd not been on in more then a couple days, actually. 

_Ah well. These the cooky ramblings of a sentimental old man, and you are now a sharp young woman ready to take it all on! There will be much in life you'll encounter Jade that will have you turned in knots,_

There were footsteps in the hallway. Bec snarled under your hand, legs straining to kick and fling himself forward. He’s never bitten you before, but he’s...not a total lapdog, and there are rats that get in the building sometimes, and...

_things that will drive you up trees and down creaks quite unscrupulously paddle-less,_

Quiet voices, you strain to hear them over your own breathing, so loud, god, so loud.

_but through it all, I believe with every last bit of me from my toes to my nose, that this one, this gem of a girl I'm blessed to call mine own, my Jadey gemstone, will be the one to weather the buff and come out victorious in your adventures._

You wish you'd closed your lunchtop. What if they see your playlist? (You're being hysterical.) There are very (it hurts when you stop breathing) personal (you hope Bec doesn’t twist your wrist with how he’s thrashing) things (your face is wet, salty, warm) on that computer!

_So! To keep you from hanging about all day no doubt rolling your eyes at your dear old granddad, I’ll make the rest of the matters brief. Welcome to the rhelms of teenagedhood, in this your thirteenth year, my granddaughter,_

The letter is crushed in your hand, damp with the overwhelming muggy heat of the isle and the closet and your clammy hand gone so old around it. The eye stabs you through the vent in the door, blue LED pupil embedded in the Transmuted organ shining blinding. 

_Happy Birthday, Jade Harely._

“Happy Birthday, Jade Harely.”


	6. There but for the Grace of God, Go I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, suburbia. 
> 
> Also hi, hello, I realize it's been a little bit since the last update. I hope this longer chapter makes up for it a little with some worldbuilding. :X

An unassuming house sits on an empty street the corner of a street which may as well call itself a streak of the grey rain threatening from above for all its lack of customary motor vehicles.

Or the driveway of the house, for that matter.

The house was painted white at its creation, just like all the houses surrounding it and surrounding them, and the buildings surrounded by spindly trees and grey walkways and still more houses. All white.

It just made the sky all the more black.

Similarly, simultaneously, diametrically, a man walks out of a black building onto the crowded streets of the neighboring municipal congregation. Through the aggregation of limbs and haze the man would walk, following lines only he could see like rain down a street devoid of cars, items one extrapolates was received inside the belly of the edifice so the center of the urban thrall. He hurries along past bodies not unlike his own and those not unlike his own, heinous and flawless. The man clutches that bag of his closer while he makes his way, so important the void within - void of course, to you and I only. His forward dogged footfalls give image to what the void might paint on the canvas of imagining what a gentleman such as himself would do with those things, so freely given in the prison of law.

It’s not every day in this world a young man turns thirteen, is it?

His final meal will be buttercream sweet.

It will hide the knockouts.

 

 

TG: so like then there he was

TG: flurocarbon on his tiddies

TG: im still holding the spoon

TG: and this douche is all up in the straights like some clown convention on a bike brigade

TG: uh

TG: hey

TG: john

TG: cmon im not wasting my best material on a dude who leaves me on fucking ‘read’

TG: your chumhandle says youre on

TG:ok like

TG: prolly nt the bst way to start this off

TG: not* best**

TG: see all making me lose my cool

TG: like damn you and harley man

TG: what is it about bark-haired bucktoothed goofclowns that send my stridarian social nuances tailspinning like a deviantart commission for a well-dressed lady buying wonderbread

TG: dark haired

TG: not bark

TG: um

TG: jade was like

TG:asking after you

TG: says you aint even wishedher a happt birthday

TG: wished* happy**fuck

TG: and like im no ones messenger pidgin like fuck you john egbert for bringing me this low i gotta haul my ass out of this sweet asswarmth spot i all got going on my bed at gods dick oclock at ngiht bc miss jungle boogie decides shes damn tired of you pretending you suddenly are nineteen and cant read or some shit

TG: like

TG: on a scale of one to shades

TG: not cool man

EB:’miss jungle boogie’?

EB: kinda inaccurate, don’t you think?

TG: w

TG: whao hey qtf man

TG: wtf*

TG: hi

EB: Dave, theres like, several paragraphs of shit up here, how long have you been typing

TG: good night and i hope youre doing ok to you too egbert goddamn

EB: well, you’re typing three or four pages worth aren’t you.

TG: why wont you message jade back

EB: .

TG: and like, not that she’s crawling up my feathery butthole and out my mouth about you yet, but rose is eyeing her crampons too closely for comfort too so like

TG: fucking hell man

TG: what gives  

EB: nothing

EB: you know, they say too much media intake is bad for young minds.

EB: maybe I managed to listen to Dad and unglue myself from a screen for once in my life.

TG: bullshit as if youre not on your knees every night for that billion year old actor your dad somehlow got movies of

TG: somehow*

TG: and as if papa egbert aint letting you get away with whatever the fuck you want for the next couple months

EB: ..

TG: i

TG: shit

TG: i didn’t mean like

EB: I’m going to message Jade back, after dinner.

 

\--ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 17:23--

\--ectoBiologist is now an idle chum--

 

TG: dude please

 

 

Your name is John Egbert, and you are hungry.

Dinner was painful in more then one way. Cramps were never a problem for you as a kid but they always did tell you things would change with puberty, lots of thing. Dad attempted to have you wash it down with something he’d made earlier but the first couple bites of sugar and something vaguely apple-flavored went down like rocks and felt twice as heavy in your gut, so you’d smiled, gave your level best impression of a yawn and declared yourself ready for bed.

There’s grey in the sky now, smearing over the horizon like the off-tones of a guardian’s face and you stare hazily at it from the nest you’ve unwittingly constructed in your bed. Nest - fuck.

He talked too much. You press your hand into your cheek  so you didn’t have to hold it up to keep looking out your window. He probably sent you like, three more pages of weird babbling after you signed off last night. You scrunch your brow just thinking about being assaulted with all that red text next time you even pull up his window. It’s blinding in the low light, the prick probably knew it. It was so vivid like not much else in nature was nowadays, like, like human-

Jade’s flowers. You blink slowly at the infinitesimal creep of gradient across your carpet. She’d sent pictures of her grandpa’s work, the lot of you questioning the legality of half the stuff he did all the way out in the middle of the ocean. Rose quietly remarked in private chats wondering at how Jade’d managed to dig up so many files of extinct breeds to clip into the picutres, while Dave questioned if old man Harley grew any of this plant people had apparently used to alter their heads? You guess that was also illegal back before the Alteration. Whatever. Dave said his Bro told him ingestables were always wack anyway - buzzups were cheap, if you knew where to buy.

Or so Dave said.

You throw your best glare towards the computer, his walls of bright, fucking red slung at your mental canvas and dripping, trickling warm down-

You sling your legs over the side of the bed, and stand. Dad left for work half an hour ago, you heard the shower and then the door.

He turned the heat off again last night, hence the blanket, er...conglomeration you’d made, you suppose. Questing into the hallway requires you to duck back into your room and snatch up a second pair of socks. Complements your two layers of shirt and ‘winter’ pajama bottoms, you guess. Decently prepared, you venture out again.

You don’t bother turning on any lights, morning having cemented itself pretty well outside now and in a similar color palette paints the walls inside. At least it mutes the fanciful jesting faces hung on them. You don’t feel in the mood to humor any grins and becheckered, three-prong hats.You hop over the one board that creaks and avoid pressing on the rickety part of the banister, trailing your right fingers over the wood. Your index presses unthinkinkly into the small divot at the bottom post where you’d knocked your first tooth out jumping off the arm of the couch.

Thankfully it was just a baby tooth, but Dad had predictably gone practically off the handle, and then you were crying, and your chin was wet and warm because hey, you knocked a tooth out, there had been a decent amount of-

You slide into the kitchen, but don’t go for the full SOCKATHON UREAL HEIR TILESLIDER combo today. Besides, you’d probably just slip and smash your face against the counter or something.

You measure out your cup of breakfast flakes and cup of calcium replacement fill, making sure to mix the powder well in the glass. Your friends thought it was hilarious when you sent them envelopes with some of it rigged to puff up into their faces that one time. Dad hadn’t thought so.

You stalwartly chew through your meal, listening to the trams outside click back and forth. You tuck your feet under your legs and wonder over a spoonful if you’ll risk turing the heat while Dad’s at work, just for a couple hours, then decide you have much better things to be doing with your time then making yet another person pissed. God, your eyelids feel like weights. Never again, you chuckle a little to yourself. The bed can have you as its willing victim any day.

The water is cold when you rinse out your bowl, and you glance out at the neighborhood. A tram zips past, and the strobing blue and red like last night’s conversation assaults the kitchen. You almost drop the bowl, the edge of it clinking warningly on the porcelain of the sink.

There are two enforcerbotsat your neighbor’s, right across the road. Their lights are on, pulsing, and they’re standing at the door.

You reach for the dishtowel.

They’re broadcasting something to the house in front of them, you can feel the beat of the sound against the countertop and window.

The bowl squeaks under the cloth.

One of them goes for the door, the other extending the two-foot baton folded in its arm. It pushes past the first and enters the home.

You put the cloth back neatly on the oven rack and make sure both the calcium replacement fill and flakes are sealed correctly before you put them away.

The other has gone in as well. You can see the lights flash at the windows across the street.

Your hand brushes over something on the table, and you look down, blinking. The worn edges of the meal voucher booklet at soft under so many years of handling. It’s practically empty, pages torn and cut and sliced and snipped out, removed along the dotted line leaving something more akin to an empty binder after so long. Thirteen years. Well, almost. There’s a month’s left of proof a child lives in this house, and the government legally has to provide for.

The two enforcerbots come back out, and have turned off their blue lights, only red throbbing out into the minimal daylight. They’re carrying something between them. Small, flailing, screa-

You hop over the squeaky board out of habit and make sure not to press too hard on the rickety bit of banister.

It’s nighttime where Jade is right now. You’ll figure out an apology when you wake up again, you promise. For her and Rose you guess.

Your name is John Egbert, and you are tired.

 


	7. Heinous Houston

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a chapter, but some art for the au. :> I have a tumblr too, if anyone want to ask questions or take a look at my other projects! 
> 
> themarginalthinker.tumblr.com


End file.
